Swim party helps spark second coronavirus peak in Arkansas

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said his state is facing a second peak of COVID-19 cases. (Kelly P. Kissel/AP Photo)

Arkansas, which allowed restaurants and gyms to reopen earlier this month, is seeing a second peak in new cases, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Saturday.

Several of the cases, the governor said, came from a swimming party attended by high schoolers.

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“A high school swim party that I’m sure everybody thought was harmless,” Hutchinson said in a news conference. “They’re young, they’re swimming, they’re just having activity and positive cases resulted from that.”

The second summit has arrived about a month after the state’s count of new COVID-19 cases topped out around 300 on April 20. The highest single-day total is now 455, recorded on Thursday.

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Arkansas has one of the lowest coronavirus death rates in the U.S., but Hutchinson said “we’ll continue to watch that and monitor that to see if there’s any problem that develops.”

“We need to be disciplined,” the 69-year-old governor said. “Increased cases indicates that there’s more Arkansans that are out there than we knew about before that are positive and could potentially spread the virus.”

Restaurants reopened at reduced capacity in the state on May 11, and gyms opened their doors a week earlier.

Arkansas’ total count of COVID-19 cases has climbed above 5,600, and the death toll stood at 115 on Saturday, according to state health authorities.